


into the blood we sink and burn

by LolaBleu



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1654577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolaBleu/pseuds/LolaBleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why did you stay?" "Why did you leave?" she shoots back. He scowls at her like he's sick of their little game and she smiles up at him like getting under his skin is just what she wanted. "What's your name? Or is that supposed to be a mystery too?" Her question only makes his scowl deeper, makes the lines around his mouth dig trenches into his skin. "Four." **AU**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Important Stuff: it's a canon-divergent AU where Tris stays in Abnegation and Tobias leaves Dauntless. So, enjoy.

When the blade cuts across her hand Tris feels like she's floating, like the little stinging slice untethered her from all the things holding her to the ground. Her blood  _drip drip drips_  onto the grey stones and she almost giggles at the irony of it all. She knows she should feel anxious or sad or  _something_ afterwards, but she doesn't really feel anything, not even the floor under her feet.

Her mother's eyes are troubled and Tris wants to tell her it's okay, she's selfless enough to be the one to stay. But Abnegation don't say things like that so she keeps her mouth shut, trying hard already to be what she needs to be. It's harder when her father wraps his arms around, pulls her close as the other factions and their new initiates file out the door.

The Abnegation frown on public displays of affection, but this is a special day and a special circumstance and she can finally feel something, feel how grateful he is to still have their Beatrice, at least.

* * *

Tris stumbles down the empty alley, blinded by her tears and not knowing where she is either way, just that she's  _away_  and that's enough for now.

She curses everyone she can think of; her brother, her mother, her father, her faction, herself. But most especially the idiot who mandated that the Choosing Ceremony go in  _reverse_  alphabetical order. It should have been Caleb. And if he was still so selfish as to choose to transfer after she did, well… he would have to live with the guilt. Besides, he is clearly the better liar between the two of them, and he could have faked his way through Abnegation initiation the same way he faked his entire existence in the faction before it: easily, and with grace.

But it wasn't Caleb. It was her.

Tris collapses into a derelict doorway, sliding down the crumbling brick with one hand clamped over her mouth to stop the noises clawing up her throat coming out because if they come out her pain will be real. She's manic, she knows, but there's no one here to witness this, and she can't do it anyplace else; being the only initiate means she gets the leaders undivided attention.

The basket in her other hand clatters to the ground, and she's just so angry that she kicks at it, but that's not enough. She snatches it back up and hurls it, as hard and as far as she can. But her muscles are weak and she's shaky anyway and it just doesn't go far enough and she screams in frustration, primal, and that's all it takes for the rest of the sound and fury to come bursting forth and before she knows it she's sobbing and screaming and she can't stop.

Because she doesn't want this life. Not now, not ever, and she hates everything that made her make this choice and she can't undo it now. She only gets one choice and she chose wrong.

* * *

Tris isn't living at home anymore because even though her family is in the faction there has to be some separation. But she still sees her parents every day.

Her father is extra nice to her, helps her anyway he can to get through initiation, though Abnegation has never had anyone fail. Still, she's struggling, he sees it, and before he's a faction leader he's a father.

Her mother's silence is her gift to Tris. When she comes back from delivering food to the Factionless - something she'd normally do with the other initiates, except there are none - Natalie helps her get cleaned up, doesn't question Tris' explanation that she got accosted by a Factionless man. It happens - she's not so naive as to think it doesn't -, but it's still not what happened to Tris, at least this time.

* * *

It becomes routine. She leaves the Meeting Hall with a full basket and she dutifully distributes it to the Factionless, slowly, carefully, deliberately working her way away from the Abnegation section where they tend to congregate and towards her hiding place. It feels like the only place she can breathe. It's certainly the only place she can cry.

Initiation isn't getting better, but she is able to hide her sadness, her anger, her everything behind a placid Abnegation mask more easily. It's still there, festering and turning into resentment, bitterness, that she tries to only feel when she's huddled in that dirty, disused doorway.

She walks down the alley on steady legs with sure feet, so unlike the first time. She sets her basket down, sweeps her robes up and carefully, carefully lowers herself to the ground. The little doorway is her refuge, her safe place. And when the slow trickle of tears slide down her face she encourages them by opening up those hidden parts of herself, slowing pulling out all the things she's desperate to hide from everyone else until the trickle becomes a torrent.

Tris keeps hoping that with enough tears she can wash them away.

It comes in waves, tides, creeping and encroaching, higher higher higher until she feels like she's drowning, like that's the reason she can't breathe, and then back out again. Some days are worse than other days, and today especially, so she doesn't notice dusk falling around her, doesn't notice the shadow cast across her in it's fading light either.

"You shouldn't be here."

She startles at the suddenness of his voice. He seems even taller because she's sitting and he's standing, but he looks so stern and height has nothing to do with that. All she can really focus on though is that he's Dauntless and here. "Neither should you," she shoots back, bewildered and bold.

"I'm not Dauntless," he grouses.

"Could have fooled me," she says, making a show of looking him up and down, from black booted feet to the black collar of his shirt where tattoos are creeping up his neck.

"And you're not Abnegation," he says snidely. "No wonder you're crying in this doorway every other day."

Her cheeks flush painfully, angrily, mortified that he knows.

"C'mon, get out of here," he says, grabbing her arm and hoisting her up like she's some stray he can shoo away.

"Let go," she grunts, pushing him off with all her strength. He stumbles a few feet and she thinks he wouldn't if he was prepared for it, but he wasn't so he does and that makes her feel a little better.

"Never known a Stiff to fight back," he says, sizing her up.

"Don't call me that," she says, voice whip-crack sharp. She knows she's not living up to her Faction, to her choice with the way she's acting, but she's not anything here other than Tris, and Tris isn't very nice sometimes.

"If you don't get back soon they'll send someone to look for you," he says. "Do you really want them to find you here?"

"Do  _you_?" she challenges. "Because Dauntless isn't supposed to patrol the Factionless anymore."

"I already told you, I'm not Dauntless."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care."

"Fine. I'll just wait here until the faction leaders come looking for me and you can explain that to them," she says, stubborn. She's still angry, still stuck on being childish and petulant, and there's a part of her that wants to sit back down and cross her arms and pout her lips at him, just for effect.

He takes a step towards her, threatening, but she takes a step back and something flashes in his eyes that she doesn't recognize and he stops, holds his hands up in the universale 'I'm not going to hurt you' sign.

"I'm not Dauntless. I left Dauntless on Choosing Day."

"Why?" She's always been too curious for her own good.

"That's not really any of your business is it? Now. Get. Out. Of. Here.," he says, pronouncing each word through clenched teeth before turning on his heel and stalking away and disappearing into another building across the way.

She flinches again when the heavy steel fire door slams shut behind him, between them.

* * *

Tris leaves that day, but she does go back. There's a different doorway around a different corner that becomes her destination, but he's on the way so she makes sure to leave a little something every time she passes.

It's tempting to hide and wait, to see when he comes out to collect her offerings. She doesn't though, if only out of some 'you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone,' quasi-respect.

It doesn't stop her thinking about him though, if only because the mystery of him is a better distraction for her hopelessness and self-pity than anything else. She wonders why he left. She entertains the idea that he was thrown out, that he committed some Dauntless crime that was so heinous he was expelled from the faction for about half a minute. He's not the type, she decides (not that she has any evidence other than her gut feeling to base that on).

It comes with a shock later when she realizes he's handsome. Tris has never noticed boys in that way. There was Robert, but that was different. It was acceptance, or maybe resignation, but he never caused the little curls of heat she feels in places she never paid attention to before every time she thinks of his face and his hands.

* * *

Tris' footsteps echo off the asphalt, bounce off the abandoned buildings that crowd so close, that make the alleyway a little strip of empty amid all their clutter. She watches her toes and counts her steps and tries to ignore the way her heart pounds in her chest, nervous. It's a rush, leaving him - whoever he is, her errant Dauntless if no one else's - little gifts of food. She's not sure if she wants to come face to face with him again, but today it doesn't matter because the decision is taken out of her hands.

"Thank you… for the food," he calls out, hesitant.

It's enough to break the steady metronome of her steps, but she still has to take a deep breath before she turns and faces him. "You're Factionless," she shrugs stiffly. "It's what we do."

"What you're supposed to do," he points out.

Her eyes narrow. "Well if you don't want it give it back, and I'll give it to someone who does."

"Have some with me?" His voice is wavering and uncertain and he seems just as shocked by the words coming out of his mouth as she is, but rather than be embarrassed he steels himself. "Have some with me," he repeats, determined this time.

It takes a minute before her feet start moving again, and this time her steps are tentative, cautious, just like her eyes. He's here and handsome and she's not quite sure how to deal with that yet.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says when she's halfway to him.

That gets her steps steady again, that challenge from him. "I know you're not."

"You've probably never had this before, have you?" he asks, slowly turning the cling-wrapped loaf of banana bread over and over in his hands.

Her chin tips up, proud and defiant, but she doesn't answer him.

He smirks at her but offers her the the bread all the same. They take small, polite bites, him looking at her and her looking at him and both of them looking away when they get caught. Somewhere between their second and third piece they turn into the greedy children they are though, haphazardly picking and pulling at the loaf, cheeks puffing out a little as they eat faster than they can swallow.

"You can have it," he says when they get down to the last little bit.

Her response is a firm, "no," and he looks like he wants to argue with her for a moment before his face softens and his shoulders relax and he pops the bite into his mouth.

But now that it's gone Tris has no reason to stay… And no idea how to gracefully leave, so she just stands there, awkward.

He leans over, rummaging in the box and pulls out two single-serve boxes of vanilla soy milk. She wants to refuse that too, but then her hand is reaching out and wrapping around it and she has no memory of the volition to do that, but she doesn't stop herself either. It's thin and watery on her tongue and much better cold, but even warm it's a sweet compliment to the bread.

"You never answered my question," Tris says, slurping at her straw.

"No, I didn't."

"You will, one day," she nods, certain.

"Are you always this demanding?"

"Yes," she says, still too wrung out to be anything but blunt. "At least according to my faction leaders and my father… who's also a faction leader."

"Why did you stay?"

"Why did you leave?" she shoots back.

He scowls at her like he's sick of their little game and she smiles up at him like getting under his skin is just what she wanted. "Thanks for the bread," she says, her expression teasing as she takes a few steps back before whipping around and walking swiftly up the alley again.

"Hey!" he shouts. "What's your name?"

"Tris," she calls back over her shoulder. "What's yours? Or is that supposed to be a mystery too?"

Her question only makes his scowl deeper, makes the lines around his mouth dig trenches into his skin. "Four."

* * *

It doesn't take her that long to figure out who he really is.

They fall into a routine of sharing something to eat after that first day, and as much as Tris relishes the forbidden treats, she relishes the close proximity to Four more. It means she gets to look at him. Up close. A lot. Just like she does Marcus, and neither one of them can hide those eyes that give away the truth.

She doesn't let on to either of them that she knows just in case those Erudite articles were right for once.

* * *

It starts with Tris unpinning her hair and ends with Tobias kissing her. The in-between doesn't really matter. His lips cut her off mid-sentence, swallowing her words and her squeak of surprise, and that doesn't really matter either.

She barely has time to register the feel of it before he pulls away again. "I shouldn't kiss you," he murmurs, and it would be embarrassing the way her body tilts forward, her lips chasing his, if she was paying attention to that sort of thing.

"No," she agrees, "you shouldn't."

"But I want to."

"I want you to," she says, her voice as hazy and unfocused as her eyes.

That's all the encouragement he needs to do it again.

xxxx 

They kiss for what feels like hours. Her lips are swollen and bruised bright when she leaves him. Dinner tastes all the better because she can still taste him, and when Marcus gives the world's most boring lecture on the dangers of gluttony Tris disappears inside her own head, goes back to Tobias.

She relives each kiss. The first, gentle and tentative. The others growing bolder. When he tugged her against him more insistently she gasped a little and he teased her with his tongue, made her own come out and chase his, draw it back into the soft hollow of her mouth. Just the memory is enough to make her press her thighs together; to ease or inflame the throbbing between her legs, she's not sure which.

By the time the lecture is over her cheeks are flushed and she's breathing hard and Susan watches her worriedly. Her own mother presses a cool palm to her forehead, brow furrowing, and determines that Tris has a fever coming on. She gets ushered to bed with a couple of pills to reduce her temperature and a damp washcloth to rest against her forehead.

Tris doesn't resist because she wants to be alone more than anything right now and feigning sickness is the most expedient way. Once she's sure her mother and Susan and old Mrs. Heath (the woman in charge of initiates) are gone for good she tosses the washcloth on her nightstand and plunges her hand under the blankets, past the waist of her sleep pants, the elastic band of her underwear.

She says a little prayer of thanks that she's all alone in the dormitory. Her fingers start exploring and it's not uncharted territory, but it's hard to translate the occasional jolt of pleasure she felt washing between her legs in the shower to the kind of thing that is going to make her come. Her nails scratch through the patch of hair at the apex of her thighs and then down down down and it makes her shiver.

It's almost embarrassing how sticky wet her panties are, but it just feels so good and it only makes her wetter. Her fingers scissor and search and it makes her shake but it's still not enough. When her fingers graze that little hidden nub of flesh right at the top of her sex her back nearly bows off the bed and it's only because Mrs. Heath is half-death that she doesn't hear Tris moan from her room further down the hall. Tris bites her lip bloody as her fingers work it, and suddenly everything is rushing as fast as her blood and her stomach swoops and she feels something clench deep inside her and  _oh_.

She's panting like she's run a mile when she comes back to herself, back to the empty Abnegation dormitory and the light snores of her mentor drifting down the hall and the quiet drip of the faucet in the bathrooms designed for so many people and now it's just her.

Her fingers twitch, still firmly buried between her thighs and she knows she should stop, but now everything is swollen and sensitive in addition to being hot and wet and she just wants more, now that she knows what her body is straining towards. She smiles, wry and decadent and  _gluttonous_ , her pleasure rebellious, and starts the process over again. And again. And again.

And it's never not good, but a half hour and a half dozen orgasms later it's not quite as good and then her mind wanders to Tobias, to his hands, and how much bigger they are than hers; rough and calloused and masculine and  _oh God_. She comes so hard she thinks she blacks out for a moment.

By the time she finally finishes an hour later her panties are ruined and her shirt is drenched in sweat and she has to take a cold shower just to wash the evidence of her activities away. Her legs are weak and shaky as she stands under the spray and she's sure they'll be sore in the morning, but she doesn't think that will stop her doing the same thing the next night.

As she wraps a towel around herself and wrings out her hair she frowns a little. She won't be able to see Tobias tomorrow or for a few days after that and that's normal, but now her absence and his presence have more weight and she should probably be mortified, seeing him and knowing that she's moaned his name into her pillow, but without the haze of lust (because she might as well call it what it is) clouding her thoughts she starts thinking about him and her and  _why_.

Why does he want her? She's scrawny and looks more like a boy than a girl and for a horrifying minute she thinks that might be his thing; little girl-boys or just boys, but either way not really  _her_. But her thoughts come thick and fast and before she can spin off into panic over that one she starts wondering if he just wants her because she's there, because she's nice to him, because she's inexperienced and he can take advantage. She starts wondering if she's the only one he's kissing and that thought bothers her the most out of all of them. It's absurd, but it does.

She strips her sheets off the thin twin mattress and she'd probably burn them if she could, but while Mrs. Heath might not question that she's sweat through them because of her "fever", Tris doubts a ritual burning would be acceptable. As she buries them in the hamper under her used towels they feel dirty, she feels dirty. Ashamed, and maybe a little used. She doesn't feel good anymore, and for the first time since she started…  _whatever_  she's doing with Tobias she cries herself to sleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

The Abnegation don't have mirrors and makeup. They don't have tight clothes either. Tris wishes they did. And a part of her knows all of that is conforming to patriarchy and the male gaze and Second Sex stockholm syndrome, but she's young and she wants Tobias to look at her the way she wants him to look at her. The fact that her faction denies her the raiments that could make that happen, or at least cancel out some of her inadequacies, is another thing that makes her wish she chose different.

The Dauntless girls have push up bras. The girls in the other factions think they're  _stupid selfish dishonest_ , depending, but the boys in the other factions all drool the same. Somehow the girls from Amity always have lush breasts. Must be all that fresh air.

She sighs and pushes the last pin into her bun and smooths her clothes down like she's steeling herself. If she was taller she could be described as 'willowy', but because she's not she's stuck with 'child-like' and that's being generous because those traitorous voices in her head call her much worse.

Tris walks out the doors of the Meeting Hall looking more determined than she feels though the Factionless who flock around her as she hands out canned goods don't really see her anyway. She bides her time and works her way closer and closer to Tobias. He's not waiting for her like he usually is and that puts her on guard because he's never not waiting for her.

She creeps into the abandoned factory that he's made his home. The space mostly cavernous and empty, but there is an overseer's office held up on stilts against one wall; it's the only place he could be hiding.

"Four?" she calls out softly, a strained whisper in the grimy light filtering through the dirty windows. She doesn't get an answer and when she tests her weight on the steel stairs that lead up to it they protest but feel sturdy so she keeps going.

The door at the top swings open on creaky hinges and she checks on the threshold, taking the room in. There's a makeshift bed, just a pile of blankets and pillows on top of an old pallet, really, a large table that must have been used for meetings at one point that now holds jugs of water and unlit candles, and not much else.

It takes Tris a minute to find Tobias, slumped in a corner like a marionette cut loose of his strings in the halflight. She's already stumbling across the floor, cursing her stupid skirt for getting caught up around her ankles when she registers his black eye and bloody nose and face mottled in bruises.

She drops down on her knees next to him, and shakes him; at first gentle in deference to his injuries and then harder, frantic, when he doesn't stir awake. "Four?" she tries again, her voice scared and small.

He makes an annoyed sound in the back of his throat and she's not sure is she wants to slap him or kiss him. "Are you okay?"

His eyes reel around, focusing first on her, then on the door, then on the brown bottle held loosely in his hand on the floor. "I think I'm drunk," he says, voice slurring.

"What happened?" Tris asks, sitting back on her heels.

"Long story," he answers, lifting the bottle to his lips. The sip ends up dribbling down his chin when she snatches the bottle away.

He glares at her, hard and intimidating but she doesn't back down and he makes a grab for the bottle only to have her hold it as far away from him as possible. "A kid died during Dauntless initiation, and his brother blames me. Can I have that back now?"

"No. So he beat you up?" she asks, incredulous.

"The Dauntless solve problems with violence," he shrugs.

"And you didn't fight back," she says slowly, eyes scanning his blemish-free hands.

"I probably deserved it, and if there's one thing I'm good at it's taking a beating."

Her breath catches and her heart seizes at what he's just inadvertently admitted, but he doesn't seem to notice. He brightens suddenly, as if he's just realized who's talking to him. "Hey," he smiles, drawing her in for a kiss, only to have her pull away.

"Don't," she says, pained.

"You didn't mind me kissing you a few days ago," he scowls, his good mood disappearing as quickly as it came.

"I just… I don't get it," she says, cheeks burning, but she pushes on, resolute because that's why she came here today. "I don't get why you want to kiss me. I'm younger than you, and Abnegation, and not pretty."

He makes an odd choked sound, his face quirking up before laughter bubbles out of his mouth.

She almost calls him a word that has never crossed her lips before. "Don't laugh," she snaps. "You know I'm not pretty."

"So what? Who gives a damn about 'pretty'?"

"I do."

"Then you're stupid."

"And you're drunk," she hisses, pulling away.

Before she can get too far he grabs her and jerks her back down, making her crash into his chest. "I don't care what you think you look like," he says placatingly. "I like the way you look. And you're not pretty… that word is too small for you."

"So what am I, then?" she asks, breathless.

"I don't know. I'm drunk. Big words are hard," he laughs.

She pushes away from him roughly, getting in a slap to his cheek that probably hurts more than it should because of the bruising, but she's beyond caring. "Clean yourself up," she snaps.

Tris stomps through the room until she finds a little closet with a toilet and sink behind a door, and promptly dumps the last of his liquor down the drain. When she comes back he's pulled his shirt off and is using a wetted end to dab gingerly at the blood crusted under his nose.

"Better?"

She nods dumbly, too distracted by the expanse of his chest; the cut curve of his muscles; the tattoos reaching around his ribs...

"Am I scaring you?" he asks, roguish and but bashful too.

"No… I'm just… scared of what I want," she says thickly.

"Do you want me?"

"Yeah," she breathes out, eyes going wide as he steps around the table to stand in front of her. Her eyes close when he cradles her face in his hands.

"I'm glad you're here," he says, his lips a whisper against her cheek. "I missed you," he says slipping an arm around her waist. "I thought about you," he says stepping her back, leading her to the bed. "I want you too."

He sits down heavily when the back of his knees get to it, and it reminds her that he's still at least a little drunk. But she still lets him slip the long cloak she wears over her clothes off of her shoulders, still helps him lift her blouse off so she's standing there in only her skirt and undershirt. Her fingers still dig into his hair when he pushes the hem of her shirt up to press his lips to the curve of her hipbone.

"I-I'm not," she stutters, swallows, and tries again. "I'm not… ready for this, Four."

She's not sure what she expects him to do, but it's not him wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face against her like he does. "I don't think I am either," he sighs, muffled by her clothes and skin. "And I don't want to be drunk my first time. If I wanted that I would have stayed in Dauntless."

He lifts his face up to look at her, so open and hopeful and  _young_  for just an instant that when he asks her to stay for a little while she says, "yes," before she can think twice.

Tobias kicks off his boots and scoots back on the bed, opening his arms for her. She settles against him, surprised at how easily they fit together, how good his skin feels, how comforting the steady thump of his heart against her cheek is.

"You've really never done this before?" she asks, her voice as timid as her fingers where they're tracing shapes on his chest.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I wanted it to mean something, and it never did until now."

Tris has to work up a little more bravery to ask her next question. "Why did you leave, Four?" she asks, her voice quiet, but determined.

He sighs, all the fight gone out of him. "Because they're bullies. Because their faction manifesto is bullshit now. Because I was sick of training Dauntless drones to do Erudite's dirty work," he says cryptically and rolls over.

* * *

Tobias doesn't get drunk again, but Tris still ends up in his bed all the same. And he develops a habit of unpinning her hair, letting it float free around her shoulders the way he likes it. She likes it too, and it's always the first step in undressing her and, she discovers, she  _really_  likes that; she really likes the way his eyes brighten and then darken with each new expanse of flesh he uncovers.

It makes her feel desired -  _he_  makes her feel desired -, and she's never felt anything that feels quite as good as that. So she lets him lavish her body with attention; with exploring fingers and soft lips and hungry eyes.

And Tris explores him too; learning the dips and curves of muscle, memorizing the architecture of bones and sinew shrouded in skin that she thinks she'll remember the scent and taste of until the day she dies. She doesn't think she'll ever forget the feel of his weight resting between her legs or the way he moans her name into her neck; nothing has ever sounded so decadent.

Tobias sighs and rolls to his side and she frowns. "I just need a minute," he gasps.

"I don't," Tris smirks, hooking her leg over his hip and pulling him close again.

He groans like she's torturing him, but still wraps his arms around her and pulls her closer. He's down to his boxers and she's only in her undershirt and panties and the thin scraps of cloth between them do nothing to hide how much they want each other.

Tobias rolls over onto his back, tugging her along with him until she's straddling him. His eyes are cautious and questioning and she rolls her hips against him in response. His hands grip her hips, guiding her back and forth, helping her find a rhythm that will get them both off.

Her panties are slick and slippery and leave a damp stop against his boxers where they're working against each other, hips rolling in tandem. It feels incredibly and not enough all at once, and Tris knows that if she wants to come she needs more. She needs his cock to slide against her like her fingers do when she's alone, thinking about him.

And for the first time she thinks about what it will be like having him inside of her, stretching her open. It makes a frisson of fear dance up her spine because she  _wants_  so much, and it would be so easy to shed the few layers of clothes that barely keep them separated and do something incredibly stupid, consequences be damned.

But, God… Just the thought of him thick and hard and moving inside of her makes her toes curl and grinds down hard thinking about it, making him hiss in pain and arch in pleasure.

"Sorry," she gasps, glassy eyed and barely aware.

His lips purse like he's figuring out a puzzle and then he pulls her down, one arm spanning the length of her back to keep their lips fused together as his other hand dips into her underwear. His fingers tease her opening, but it's her hips moving just right that get them inside.

She's done this before, herself, but it's always an awkward angle that makes her wrist ache and really, the payoff isn't that much better anyway. But this time her body clenches at his finger and her hips seem to have a mind of their own what with the way they rise and fall and roll.

If he has a problem with her using his fingers as a prop he doesn't say anything, in fact he comes when she does, the pulsing vein in his neck beating out a rapid tattoo against the flat of her tongue while he moans expletives in her ear.

* * *

Tris does a good job of separating 'Tobias' from 'Four' and never letting slip that she knows they're one in the same despite the flashes of the Abnegation boy she sees in the Dauntless man. So, it comes as a bit of a surprise to her that she could be so stupid as to blurt out, "I thought your mother was dead," when Evelyn turns up one day.

It is probably due to him making her mind very fuzzy by making her come around his fingers with his mouth. And the sheer mortification at being caught that way doesn't help, but still.

What does come as a surprise though is Tobias roaring at her to, "get the fuck out!"

* * *

Natalie's features are set hard and as soon as Tris sees her she knows she's in trouble. She's just not sure exactly what she did wrong because it's been a week since she's seen Tobias.

"Come have dinner with me," Natalie says in a tone that makes it absolutely clear that it's not a request.

As soon as their feet hit the sidewalk outside the Meeting Hall Natalie loops her arm through Tris', her lips turning up in the shadow of a smile. "Your father is working late tonight," she says pleasantly, their steps relaxed and meandering. "I thought we could keep each other company while we knit."

She smiles her Abnegation smile at all the neighbors they pass, the gentlemen tipping their heads in respect and recognition.

Natalie drops the act as soon as they're behind closed doors again. Dinner's already on the table; sandwiches made with spongy wheat bread that feels soggy from too much time in the freeze, tinned meat and the wilted, leftover lettuce that never made it into a salad. Waste not, want not.

Natalie blows a breath out through her nose; harsh, irritated. "Do you know what will happen to you if they find out you're…  _fraternizing…_  with the Factionless?"

Tris resolutely keeps her mouth shut. She's nothing if not stubborn, and she's not going to own up to the fact that whatever she was doing with Tobias is over; not now, not like this.

"They will excommunicate you," Natalie says, a plea edging into her voice. "Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but make no mistake: they will throw you on the streets even if your father is a faction leader."

"Why not today?" Tris snaps. "What makes any day better than any other day if they're going to throw me out?"

Natalie pinches her lips shut, her posture sagging just slightly as she settles against the back of her chair, the answer hanging heavy in the air between them.

It only takes Tris a moment to grasp it. Because it would be a scandal. Because the Erudite would taunt them with it, use it as evidence of their faction's increasing irrelevance, or maybe just proof of their otherwise well hidden moral turpitude.

"Is that what happened to Evelyn?" she demands.

Natalie's silence speaks volumes.

"Did you know Marcus was using his wife and son as punching bags?" Tris sneers disgustedly at her mother, fitting the puzzle pieces she has into a new picture.

Natalie pales. "You don't know what you're talking about," she says, weakly.

"Neither do you," Tris says, determined. Her hands are fisted so tight that her ragged nails are cutting painfully into her palms. She ignores it, focuses her anger on the woman sitting across from her, who, right now, she's having a hard time remembering is her mother and her elder and someone supposedly deserving of her respect apropros of nothing.

"She was a victim, and you treated her like she was expendable," Tris accuses, her voice rising. "Because if the truth came out the other factions would say we're unfit to lead this city. Maybe they're right; we're just as willing as any other faction to do what it takes to get power and keep it, aren't we?" Silence, after all, is the weapon of the Abnegation; it's what they wield to maintain the status quo. "Will I have to fake my death too?"

Natalie stiffens like the words are physical blows, before slowly getting to her feet, her posture resolute and rigid. "You have no idea of what life would be like without the Factions, Beatrice," she grits out. "I am not always proud of the decisions that we have to make, but they are made in the best interest of everyone. Evelyn was not expendable, no one is, but in this life there are things that are greater and more important than one person. And maybe when you mature a little, and own up to the decisions that you made, you will not be so quick to judge others," she finishes, sweeping from the room with quiet, unobtrusive steps.

* * *

Tris has set the precedent of coming back to the Meeting Hall late into the afternoon and to not do so now would cause suspicion. So, she walks. She gets lost, she gets found, and somehow always finds her way back to Abnegation.

She has a million conversations with Tobias as she does, always in her head; sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, sometimes just talking because they did talk and she misses that. She misses him, but that's harder to think about, so she focuses on the conversations they had or could be having or should be having because that's somehow easier.

He got her, she thinks, and nobody else really had. Like him she's not just Tris or Beatrice, one or the other, and he saw and held more pieces of her than anyone else.

The thought that hurts the most is the idea that she'll never have that with someone again. It rips at her like something to be mourned and she's never done well with grief.

The only thing she doesn't do is seek him out; he's the one who shouted her out of his life and she'll be damned if she goes crawling back. It's not her job to fix this, it's his.

And he must think so too because ten days after he last saw her, and three days after her fight with her mother, he grabs her from behind as she's rambling through another abandoned part of the city and hauls her into an empty doorway.

Her first, reflexive, move is to fight since she can't see who's grabbing at her. She has no idea what she's aiming for, flailing around like she is, but she's at least successful in knocking the wind out of her attacker enough to twist around and land a clumsy punch to his face. It's only then she sees it is Tobias.

He rolls his jaw, pokes around with his tongue like he's checking for missing teeth and she thinks it's all a little stupid. The pain in her hand is blistering, splintering right up her knuckles into her wrist, but it probably hurt her more than him.

It felt good to hit him. And the realization of that is immediate guilt because he's been hit too many times for someone else's pleasure. Still, Tris doesn't apologize.

"Well… I won't sneak up on you again," he says, a little sheepish and little sore.

"What do you want?" she spits out.

"Not to get punched in the face," he counters.

She wants to say something sassy and snarky, but settles for asking the same question again because he didn't answer her the first time and she's not going to even think about letting him off the hook until he does.

He scratches nervously at the back of his neck, eyes searching the ground like he'll find her answer written there. "I just… missed you," he admits like it's something shameful.

"That's not my fault."

"You think I don't know that?" he says angrily. "I just… Look. I miss you, okay? And I know I fucked up, and I know I shouldn't have screamed at you, and I was going to tell you who I was-"

"-But you didn't!" she explodes. "You didn't! Instead you treated me like I was the one keeping secrets, like I-"

" _I know, damn it!_ " he shouts back, breathing hard. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself before he continues. "I know. And I  _was_  going to tell you. When I was ready. When I was sure about you."

"And when was that going to be?" she scoffs, disbelieving.

"When I was sure you weren't going to leave."

That simple sentence saps her of her anger, most of it anyway. "I wouldn't have," she mumbles. "I didn't. But obviously that doesn't count for anything."

"Yes, it does," he says hastily, seizing onto her admission. He closes the distance between them in two quick steps, only hesitating slightly when she jerks back as he tries to take her face in his hands. "I'm not going to hurt you," he murmurs, inching closer now.

"You already did."

He sighs heavily, resting his forehead against hers. "I suck at this," he chuckles humorlessly before sliding down the brick wall beside her.

"At what, apologizing?"

"No, this," he says motioning between them. "I've never had a girlfriend before, and clearly I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"Did you just call me your girlfriend?"

"Maybe," he says, very serious, his lips only twitching up a little.

She sinks down next to him. "I don't know what I'm doing either," she says contemplatively. "I just know how I feel when I'm with you."

"How do you feel when you're with me?"

"Whole."

* * *

The first time they have sex Tris is self-conscious and Tobias is anxious and they're both trying to prove something to the other with their bodies in a way their words haven't been able to do.

The air smells like latex and lube and blood, and the makeshift nest of blankets on top of an old pallet that serves as his bed creaks every time he thrusts into her, and all she feels is raw between her legs, and there is literally  _nothing_  good about this.

He wipes her clean after and makes her come, his tongue lapping at her softly because she's still sore.

"It will be better next time," he promises, after, pulling her against his chest and drawing the blankets over them.

She dozes off, lulled to sleep by the steady metronome of his heart under her ear and the gentle pitter-patter of rain smattering against the roof, deliciously content in their little piece of the world despite everything because she's back in the place she wants to be.

But it can't last forever and too soon she's crawling over him, a murmured apology slipping past her lips as she reaches for her skirt and sweater and shoes. He doesn't ask her to stay, just scowls and traces the bruises shaped like his mouth on the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs, as if to remind her that she is his, and he is hers, like she's leaving him for some _one_  else instead of some _thing_  else.

* * *

Initiation Day comes with obscene haste, Tris thinks. She's sure that initiates in the other factions are probably having to endure things vastly more unpleasant than she is (and she's devoutly thankful she isn't Candor - the truth could undo her right now), but it's not exactly easy either.

She gets through it the same way she did Choosing Day, reminding herself of family and duty and selflessness. It feels heavy on her shoulders, pressing and grinding and subjugating her under the weight of those things that don't feel like real reasons right now.

And somehow, at the end of the day she finds herself in the meeting hall, the faction at her back, the leaders at her front, and she can't make a run for it like she desperately wants to do with them all caging her in.

Her father gives her a slight, reassuring nod, but it only registers in some back part of her consciousness, Tris watching Beatrice like this is all playing out like a movie in her head. Tris watching as Beatrice stands when they tell her to; repeats the words her father recites to her when he tells her to; blinks away her tears and plasters an Abnegation smile on her face as he leads her to a chair, gently removing her shoes and socks and lowering her bare feet into a little basin of warm, soapy water.

When Marcus' fingers insinuate themselves between her toes she gasps and jerks and finally comes back to herself to find him crouched in front of her, hands submerged, an unreadable expression in his blue eyes that are so much like Tobias'. She wants to blacken them, make bruises bloom around the blue. But she doesn't, can't, and stills stonily until he's done, feeling violated the whole time.

When it's over they share a meal, everyone serving to the left and Tris chokes it down because not eating would be like punching Marcus, and she's almost hopes she throws up later just because it would feel better to get it out then stuff it down.

The first thing she does when she's allowed to go back to the dormitory is hop up on the counter in the bathroom and wash her feet under she can't feel Marcus' touch anymore. Her soles are pink and raw and every stray piece of grit on the floor hurts when she tip-toes across it.

Tris strips down to her undershirt and panties before crawling between the sheets. They're cold and smell like soap and she  _hates_  it. She wants Tobias' bed and him in it. She wants warmth and comfort and musky, heady boy-smell. She wants to press her cold feet against his calves and hear him hiss and complain that she's always cold, and pull her closer all the same.

And the thing she's been running from all day, the thing that's making her sick and exhausted and she-doesn't-even-know-what hits her like the brutal, brute force of a speeding train.

Because she finally,  _finally_  understands the magnitude of her choices, and it's  _terrifying_ ; the size and shape and force of them.

Because when you think about the rest of your life, you're not really thinking about anything but the immediate future. You're thinking a few years down the road, not ten or twenty or a lifetime. And when you think about it like that you can almost convince yourself that anything is a good idea, just like she did: that she could live this life, half in and half out.

Tris tries to remind herself of every half starved Factionless face she's seen over the last month; sickly children, broken elderly, and even people who should be in their prime clinging to life by nothing but the sheer will to draw one breath after the last and then another. They need  _help_.

She remembers the face of her father, a few hours ago. She remembers her mother's angry pleading from a few weeks ago. They need  _her_.

But for the first time those things just don't  _matter_  because none of them are enough to make her forget Tobias.

~~xxxx~~

It's easier than Tris thought it would be, sneaking out of the dormitory - not that she gave it much thought. Mrs. Heath was already asleep, snoring lightly and a pillow tucked between her knees to ease the ache in them. There wasn't even a lock on the door leading outside; then again, there isn't a lock on any of the doors in Abnegation.

It's late enough that the streets are deserted, though a fine, foggy mist has settled over the city. Tris pulls her cloak more tightly around herself against it, her panted breaths disappearing into it, just like she is.

She doesn't know what Tobias' reaction will be, showing up,as she is, in the middle of the night, but the idea that he might turn her away doesn't even register. One of them has to be brave, has to take that leap, and right now it's her, but she knows he'll be there to catch her when she falls.

The fire door bangs noisily as she bursts through it, ricocheting off the wall, and the stairs sound thunderously under her feet as she pounds up them. The door at the top, the only one left between her and him, is rimmed in light. It floods out when she pushes it open. She checks on the threshold.

Tobias is standing up, his back rigid and his arm steady as he points a gun at her. "Tris?" he asks, bewildered, before tossing it away and crossing the floor to her with quick steps. He takes her face in his hands, tilting in from one side to the other as if looking for any signs of injury. "Are you okay?"

She ignores his questions. "I -  _we_  - can't keep doing this. They'll find out; my mother already knows, your mother told her," she babbles, feeling childish. She takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself, get her thoughts out coherently. "It will have to stop."

"I know," he says, apprehensive.

"They'll expect me to get married…"

Her hands fist into the fabric of his shirt, her knuckles pushing him backwards.

"And have a family. Not soon, but someday you know they will."

Tobias' knees impact with the edge of the bed, and he pulls her close, hands cradling her hips.

"I know," he repeats since that's the only answer he's got.

His eyes ask her questions his lips are too afraid to as he pushes the hem of her shirt up. His lips ghost over the soft skin riding above her hip bone, slow and shy and sure she's saying goodbye.

He buries his face against her flesh, arms looping around her waist firmly as if he can get her to stay if he just holds on.

Tris' fingers dip into his hair, soothing, and when he looks up at her his eyes are wet and glassy and desperate, but she can't make the rest of the words she wants to say some out, so instead she leans down, fitting her lips to his and hopes that it's enough to tell him what she wants.

And though his lips are soft and pliant at first, his hand cups the back of her neck, not letting her pull away as he kisses her more hungrily. She feels wet and warm between her legs, and that's not so unusual, it's just not usually this quickly consuming.

She doesn't stop him when he starts undressing her, helps him by pulling her sweater over her head and shimmying her hips when he pulls her skirt down. She stumbles out of her shoes as they both scrabble at his belt, and he's barely got his pants pulled down when his hands grasp the backs of her knees and pull her into his lap insistently.

And then his lips are on hers again and she can barely think let alone breath. Her undershirt twists tight under her breasts, pulled up by his his arm spanning across her back so his hand can grip her shoulder, hold her in place the same way his fingers are digging into her hip and it all feels so good she can't help moaning into his mouth.

She moans again when his hand on her hip starts guiding her back and forth over his cock, his mouth biting and sucking on the column of her throat and for once not heeding her rule about leaving his marks only where other people won't see them. It all feels so good, so impossibly good, that all she can do is pant and hold on hard to his shoulders.

"I want you," she gasps, nearly incoherent with it.

She chokes when on his next pass he slips inside her, spreading her open, filling her up.

"I love you," he says, so quiet she almost doesn't hear him, too strung out to pay close attention to the words come out of his mouth.

"I'm in love with you," he says again, like a confession, like he doesn't expect her to say it back, just bear witness to his sins.

She feels his words resonate between her legs, and her body throbs and clenches around him in answer. She's never felt this vulnerable before, never felt this stripped, this bare, or this close to someone before and she knows she never will again with someone else.

It will always be him.

She'll never forget his taste or smell, will dream about it endlessly forever if she has to give it up.

"Love me," she whispers, her lips at his ear because it's what she want more than anything.

And he does, his body slowly moving with hers until her toes curl and her teeth bite into his shoulder hard enough to leave marks of her own.

Tobias groans deep, his body stuttering to a halt so deep inside her there's no space left between them for secrets and fears to hide in.

Neither of them try to move as they catch their breath, fingers softly caressing the other in the hazy twilight of their love-making.

"I don't want anyone else," she says, finally finishing her speech from earlier.

"I don't either."

"Ask me to stay," she whispers, suddenly uncertain.

"Why?" he asks sharply, dubiously, like it can't possibly be this simple.

She closes her eyes, suddenly insecure over what she's about to admit despite what he's already said. "Because… because if I stay I will always think about what we could have been. And I'll still feel that way about Abnegation if I leave, I guess, but between the two you're the one I can't walk away from."

"It won't be an easy life, Tris," he murmurs, reminding her. "We'll get sick. We'll go hungry. We could die."

Now it's her turn to say, "I know."

"If we have kids -"

"- I know," she says, emphatic, because she does, because she's thought about it. "But I don't want anyone else, Tobias," she reiterates. "I'll never want anyone else."

Tobias pulls back just enough to look at her, appraising, before finally saying, "don't leave me," like a scared little boy.

"You can't leave me either," she demands.

"Never," he promises.

Tobias lays them down on the bed, arms and legs braided around each other, neither willing to have any distance between them. They're still lying there like that when they hear the first volley of gunfire in the distance.


End file.
